Inside a charred book, pages dotted in soot stains tell the story of how San Francisco rose to the epicenter of a gold rush. Barely escaping the 1906 earthquake, this book should’ve burned completely.

The city’s oldest continually operating library presumed it did. After all, almost 200,000 volumes inside the Mechanics’ Institute did. That was until Randall Schwed donated the book to the library in December. Fumbling around an online marketplace, Schwed found “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” listed for $35.

“What’s interesting about this book is that it’s a survivor,” Schwed told CNN. “I needed to send it home.”

Fires heavily damaged the city during the 1906 earthquake and other fires followed. While no one knows which fire the book survived, here’s what we know about the mystery around it.

Library Manager Myles Cooper has been racking his brain for an explanation of how the book found its way home. In a fire after the earthquake that destroyed 200,000 volumes, how could this book emerge more than a century later?

Was it checked out? Was it rescued from the rubble of another fire? Was it hidden somewhere?

Cooper is certain the book is from the institute in San Francisco, evident by a stamp and a date: Dec. 10, 1874. Schwed, a collector, said his first instinct was to research the owner.

Agnes Quigley is inked at the top of the book’s first page.
In 1898, a woman by the name Agnes Quigley posted an advertisement in the San Francisco Call and Post newspaper, Schwed said.

The advertisement is about a young woman and reads, “From East, wishes situation as chambermaid and carer of children.”

There’s no way to prove whether the two Quigleys are the same person, Schwed said. But he has two theories as to how Quigley could have gotten hold of the book. She could have checked the book out. Or Quigley somehow stumbled upon the charred book and inscribed her name inside.

Both theories are plausible, Cooper agreed. He added another theory: There was a “lot of looting in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake.”

“Echoes of the Foot-Hills” isn’t the sole survivor, though. Other volumes, like archival and reference materials, were in a safe at another location during the earthquake, Cooper said. Another book, “Marriages, Rights, Customs and Ceremonies,” survived and was in circulation until 2001.

Now, the soot-spotted book is unavailable for checkout. It is locked in a display case beneath an 1854 map of San Francisco that also survived the earthquake. Nearby, an oversize atlas bears drawings of the earthquake’s activity created by pendulums.

“It’s really kind of like a library fantasy,” Cooper said. “It’s really magical.”

In San Francisco’s Financial District, the Mechanics’ Institute stands two stories tall. The membership organization is home to the nation’s longest-running chess club, writers’ groups and classes.

In the 1850s, the institute was established to provide gold miners with an education. Decades later, in January 1906, the institute merged with the Mercantile Library to form what was the city’s largest library. Three months later, the Institute lost that title.

“Our library was destroyed in ways that many other buildings were not. I mean, it completely fell down,” Cooper said. “There’s only one remaining wall and really only one brick story left, and everything was burned.”

The institute, like San Francisco, began discussing a plan to rebuild, Cooper said. They collected thousands of dollars and books in donations. Many of those books are related to architecture, mining and railroads – the things San Francisco needed to rebuild.

“It’s definitely part of the DNA of San Francisco to rebuild and rethink things, and that we always have a place to save history, and people’s stories won’t be lost,” Cooper said. “We will be a place that can have the capacity to contain those stories.”

As a longtime San Franciscan, Cooper said the earthquake’s story is kept alive through word-of-mouth. Today, no witnesses of the earthquake and fire are alive.

The institute plans to put acid-free cardstock inside the book to explain its story. It’s common practice for an owner to write their name inside an old book. “Echoes of the Foot-Hills” has had three owners in its more than 150-year lifespan: Quigley, Schwed and the institute.

One pedestrian died at the hospital and three others suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a driver struck them in SF’s Mission District earlier this week.

The San Francisco Police Department arrested a driver suspected of fatally striking four pedestrians in the area of 16th and Mission streets Monday morning, as KRON4 reports.

Officers responded to the scene at 12:13 am and found medics treating one pedestrian with life-threatening injuries. The person later died at a nearby hospital, and three other pedestrians sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

The driver was reportedly detained soon after the collision. The department has not announced what charges they will receive.

“We hold the victim and their loved ones in our thoughts, and grieve this loss of life on San Francisco’s streets,” said Jodie Medeiros, executive director for Walk SF, in a release. “We all deserve to be able to get around safely in our city.”

This marks the ninth pedestrian death in San Francisco this year. It’s also the second such death in the Mission, following the tragic death of local musician Danielle Spillman at Mission Street and South Van Ness Avenue in April, as SFist reported previously.

Four pedestrians were killed throughout the month of March, including deaths in Chinatown, the Financial District, North Beach, and the Outer Mission. In late February, a two-year-old was run over in Mission Bay.

Anyone with information may contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text “TIP411,” beginning with “SFPD.”

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